Sex, Politics, and Death: Ian Anderson on Thick as a Brick 2, Part Three

Having touched upon some of the more
immediate and lighter subjects in the first two parts of our extended conversation, in this third and final installment the driving force behind Jethro Tull tackles
some of the really big issues even as he openly questions some of his own
long-held assumptions and beliefs about himself, our world, and his legacy.

Is
there a question that you’ve really wanted to answer that no one’s ever asked
you?

People don’t often ask me about being
gay.

I don’t think I’m gay; that’s not really
the point. It’s just that I’m quite angered at the moment by the veering towards some rather homophobic
kind of mood as a result of—in my country, at least—the anxiety felt by many
people in society, particularly in the religious hierarchy, that gay marriage
should not to be recognized or allowed.

I suppose 50 years ago, maybe I would
have accepted that argument. Maybe 20
years ago I would have accepted that argument, although I think I wouldn’t have
agreed with it. But in this day and age, I really do think we have to accept
times have changed. And when people have the real desire to express their love
for each other, and their commitment to each other, then I think that religion
has got to just say, “Okay, listen—we don’t get
this. We don’t understand it. But we have to accept it that, within civil law,
there ought to be a place for gay marriage rights.” Not just civil
partnerships, which I refer to by name on the new record, but gay marriage as
such is something that is a blessing,
is a state which I, personally, feel strongly about.

But, no, I don’t think that I’m gay. But
if I was, I would bloody well want—if
I met the right person—I would the right to express that in the kind of formal
form of marriage.

So, I don’t often get asked that
question, because it’s just a bit of a political hot potato at the moment, and
the people who usually get drawn into those arguments are obviously the people who are, amongst the gay community, the more
verbal, the more likely to be a spokesman.

But I think in a way the rest of us have
got to stand up, too, and be counted in this sort of a situation. You know,
we’re not back in the red-necked '50s here. We live in a different age. I think
we have to recognize that the choice in terms of sexuality, in terms of gender,
these were not really the kind of options that existed for our parents’ or our
grandparents’ generations. But they do now,
and I think we have to recognize that we have to extend rights to people who
should be granted them.

Myself,
it’s always seemed less of a question of what gender or nationality or whatever
you are, and more about the basic question, “Are you a human being?” [Laughs] I mean, that should guarantee you equal
rights, shouldn’t it?

Well, you would have thought so, in the
same way you would have hoped, if you were one of Siegfried and Roy’s tigers,
you would have tiger rights. [Laughs] But, as we all know, humans are pretty
good at being pretty beastly, whether to our animal friends or other human
beings. I don’t think we have a very good track record of actually representing
people’s rights.

But, lest I sound too much of a liberal,
you’ll find me pretty far over on the extreme right when it comes to certain
other aspects of life. I think we have to think each case through on its
merits.

And when it comes to, in a sense, the
more international side of the big issues
that we face today—and one of those is obviously the retreat from Afghanistan,
that’s a really difficult one. That’s
a really difficult one, but I think I know what my views are on that, and they might, if I was to
express them, sound pretty far on the right. But on other issues, you’ll find
me fairly far to the left in terms of
traditional political or social views.

I don’t think we should be creatures of
one persuasion. Life is too complex to be just painting ourselves always into
the same political corner. I think different issues demand a different
evaluation.

I’m used to people thinking I’m either
as much of a pinko as they come or,
on the other hand, radically to the traditional right. I think, perhaps, in
American politics things are a little different than they are in my country [England]. But nonetheless, I have known people who are strongly involved on
either the Democratic or the Republican side, and it’s great to have spirited
arguments and discussions with them.

But my own views, in terms of
traditional politics—or at least what I know about American politics—are much
more down the middle, I guess. I’m certainly not radical in terms of political
views, as far as American politics are concerned. But on certain other issues I
think my views tend to be a bit more extreme in terms of feeling more inclined
to express myself or use my voice.

Does
that mean we’ll we be hearing more direct commentary along those lines from you
in the future?

Well, I’m too old to be a politician. I
suppose it’s one of those things that you maybe weigh up somewhere along you
life, and maybe you’re even seduced,
sought-after, embraced by elements that could draw you into that life. But I never personally wanted to go down that
route. It’s not something felt I’ve ever really
wanted to commit myself to, but I can see it’s a bit like being a policeman.

I wanted to be a policeman when I was
much younger. I wanted to be a good
cop. I mean, not a good cop in the sense of high-achieving cop that was good
professionally speaking, but good in terms of the ethics and the morality of
policing. It’s quite a difficult thing to do. I mean, inevitably, you see some
pretty nasty stuff going on, which
can definitely dull your sense of
right and wrong. It’s pretty hard to be a good cop, I think.

And I think it’s even harder to be a
good politician, because the power and the inevitable corruption that comes
with it is something that’s just too much for people to resist. Even if they
don’t take backhanders [i.e. bribes],
or do something totally politically corrupt, they can fall prey to the ability
to cloud their own judgment, and to have perhaps a degree of self-belief that
is very hard for the rest of us to understand.

An example being Tony Blair. When he was
Prime Minister, he started off, I guess, demonstrating some very strong and
positive ability. And you can’t deny that the Labour Party achieved some pretty
positive changes, especially in contrast to the fading glory years of
Conservative rule under [Margaret] Thatcher and her immediate successor.

The Labour Party started off looking
pretty good. Tony Blair looked like he was a good Prime Minister and a very
good politician. But he became seduced and corrupted by the whole affair,
especially internationally, and turned out to be someone that the history books
seemingly are not going to be very kind to. And in his post-Prime
Ministerial years, he just slides further down the slippery slope of
disapproval.

George W. Bush, on the other hand, did
the sensible thing — just disappeared completely.
But it wouldn’t surprise me if he pops
up at some point in some guy’s having had a bit of a soft spot for George Bush
as a human being, I rather hope that he does re-emerge in some capacity just to prove that he did actually have
a pretty good mind and, certainly, a good heart.

And a very, very nimble man on his feet
when it came to dodging flying shoes. [Laughs]

It’s
really interesting to hear of your compassion for politicians, especially given
that you’ve worked for much of your life in a profession where the temptations
are legion—or at least they used to be. And yet, you’ve remained grounded, and
it really does seem that you’ve managed to keep your moral center intact. How
did you navigate that territory safely all those years, and how difficult was
it, really?

I don’t think it’s difficult at all. You
try and stay in touch with the real world, and try and keep a sense of inasmuch as the really big issues are
concerned, I think you have to keep involved and educated. So I watch
television, as I often do, to watch rolling news programs, channel-hopping
between Al Jazeera, FOX TV, CNN, BBC, maybe Sky, even Press TV, the Iranian
television channel when that was on our satellite airwaves. For some mysterious
reason, it was removed just a couple of months ago. It suddenly disappeared.

Yeah, I’m a channel-hopper. I like to
see different viewpoints and different expressions. If I read newspapers, then
I don’t read the same newspaper all the time. I try and make a point of each
time picking up a different newspaper
and letting some of the editorial and the bias come to me, simply because I want to hear the other points of view.

Okay,
that all makes sense. But, since things did get a little involved in there, I
just want to make sure that there’s no confusion on any reader’s part concerning
your sexual orientation: So, you’re not
gay, correct?

I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. And
therein lies the whole nub of all of this.
Because I don’t think any of us can be 100% sure of sexuality—we’re all a little bit you know? I mean a lot of
girls I know like to wear the trousers and, quite frankly, there are times I’m
prepared to let them! [Laughs] As long as they have a plumbing kit, and they
can mend the car and stuff, that’s great.

But, I don’t mean to be glib or facile
about it. It is just, I don’t know
because I have never tried, so I don’t know the answer to that. But I like to
think that all of us have to be prepared to be open-minded and a little more
ambivalent about it, even in later life. You know, it’s possible.

My old friend David Palmer, aged
60-something, decide strangely out of the blue that he wanted to be a woman and
had a complete gender change operation. I mean full surgery, just three or four
years ago. And he’s now Dee Palmer, a fully-fledged woman wearing ladies’
clothing and living life as an elderly woman on the south coast of England.
[Laughs amiably]

And who would have thought? David Palmer
was a man’s man. He smoked a pipe, had a deep voice, and decided, strangely,
that he was going to become a woman. And, well, good luck to him! All the rest
of us can do is, once we may scratch our heads about it, we have to be
supportive and respectful.

So, things like that test us all, I
think, in life, and we have to cope with those issues.

But, am I gay? I don’t think so. I’m not sure 100%, kinda 99%
sure, but all could change. Watch this space.

Okay,
thanks. I suspected your answer would still be a bit more complicated that a
simple “yea” or “nay.”

Yeah, exactly.

Is
boredom the enemy when it comes to you? I ask, because I get a strong
impression that you just cannot sit still, creatively or otherwise, for any
length of time.

Ah, well, I suppose that is true. But it
has to do with more pragmatic reasons than boredom. I don’t really recall
being the one time I might have been bored is
going on holiday, going on vacation as you call it. I’m not much good at that,
and I do get a bit bored just sitting
in a hotel room. I don’t like to go out and just sit in the sun, and I don’t
like to do stuff where there’s a lot of people on vacation and having a
wonderful time. It just makes me angry.

So, I’m not a good person to go on vacation with, not unless there’s
specifically a reason—you know, traveling or visiting something, or things to
do. But to just sort of sit in some resort hotel isn’t really for me—it’s not a pleasant thing at all. So, if I do do that, I always take my computer,
and my guitar and my flute, and I use my time doing something rather than just
sitting there staring at the television or reading a book.

So, I try not to get bored, and most of
the time, boredom is not an enemy. It’s not even an occasional visitor. I’m not
quite sure how I’d get along with it if it did show up on my doorstep. We might
become the best of friends, or maybe not. But I don’t really get bored.

So, the answer to the question is, No,
it’s not an enemy. And my natural propensity for getting on doing things is
probably a little bit amplified in these later years of my life because I’m
well aware that time is running out. And if I don’t do stuff now, I won’t do
it. So it’s good to turn the wick up on the lamp a little brighter as you
approach that moment where, when it does finally wink out, it winks out
forever.

So, boredom? Not really an option.

Gay sex? On the cards, but probably not,
either. [Laughs]

No, I’m just kidding [More laughter]

I
do want to touch upon what you might see as your legacy, but first, since you
don’t stand still, have you given any real thought to what comes after TaaB 2? For instance, is there another
disc in the Tull repertoire that you could envision doing something similar to
this current release and celebratory tour?

No, there isn’t.

The projects I’m working on this year,
well, essentially there are three things that I’m working towards. One of them,
there’s a bit of a start made already, which is an album of essentially string
quartet music of Jethro Tull repertoire, done by a string quartet with my
input, playing the flute. And that’s something I’m working on in collaboration
with our keyboard player, John O’Hara. So, we’ve arranged some stuff already,
and we will do that. And doubtless it will be played at people’s weddings and
funerals. It won’t be a high profile, high selling album, but it will be a
very, very nice way of listening to Jethro Tull’s mainstream repertoire in a
context that is, I think, creatively different. So, that’s something we’re
working on.

And I have in mind to do some real
singer-songwriter material. I mean something really striped down to being just guitar and voice for the most
part, and very little else—just really, really
minimal stuff. That obviously requires writing the music, and being energized
to write the music, and may well have a sort of conceptual thing behind it, but
it’s a little early to say what that might be, musically.

And I have one other project which I
would really set aside for probably 2013, which is kind of a hard rock album. I
wouldn’t mind just doing well, I suppose you might say, justifying that hard rock/heavy metal Grammy that we won all those years ago. [Laughs] Maybe the
time has come to actually say, “You know? All right, maybe we are a hard rock/metal band.” I think
I’d quite like to do one that’s kind of that full-on raging music. But whether
I want to another whole album, or maybe just do a big 20-minute song, I don’t
know.

But those are three projects that I have
in mind, and that’s a couple of years’ worth of work, really. I don’t think
it’s wise for me to look much beyond
that at the moment, especially since 2013 touring will probably take us on down
into the southern hemisphere, and may well bring us back to the USA the early
summer of 2013. It’s quite a long time to look ahead itself. But cast your
thoughts forward from that to 2014 and ’15, that’s probably about

My god, what will I be then? I’ll be 68
in 2015, and I would think if I make 70 as a professional musician, I’d be
pretty pleased. And, these days, with the miracles of modern science, who
knows? It could even go on a bit longer.

Maybe I’ll take up tennis? Maybe you’ll
find me playing at the Wimbledon Tennis finals? Maybe they’ll offer me a drive
in the McLaren formula one team? Who knows what’s ahead of me? I’m too old to
become an airline pilot—that I found out. [Laughs]

I was flying a Boeing 737 out of
London’s Heathrow Terminal 5 two weeks ago, and I said to the lady co-pilot—the
very heavily pregnant lady co-pilot—I said, “Listen, I’m 64, coming up 65. When
do I have to retire as an airline pilot?”

She said, “Ah, 65.” [Laughs]

I said, “Okay, we’ll go around a couple of
times, and then I better get this thing on the ground again!” [Laughs]

I said, “No, first time flying anything
at all. But now you got me interested in this, I think maybe I might even think
about going and getting a driver’s license.” And she couldn’t believe that I
don’t even drive a motor car, let alone a passenger jet.

It’s kind of funny—to me, anyway—kind of
funny that there are these things that have just passed me by in life.
And I think, in a way, you’re never too old to learn. Maybe when you’ve got not
so much to lose, and you’re a really
old guy, and death is just around the
corner, then maybe that’s the time to
get out in the formula one race track and just go as fast as you can.

It
would make it a very interesting race, at the very least.

Somehow, I don’t think anyone is going
to give me a car to do that. Actually, I wouldn’t be the first
professional race driver to not have
a driving license and drive on the road. That has happened before.

Right,
either they didn’t ever get one, or perhaps had it taken away from speeding too
much.

Yeah, well, I’ve never had one to have
it taken away! [Laughs] It’s not something that has ever remotely interested me, having a driver’s license. I love driving
off road. You know, motorcycles and four-wheel drive vehicles. But I really
have no interest in driving in a
straight line on a public highway; seems incredibly
boring. Really, really boring. And
I’m not someone, as you know, doesn’t make friends with boredom.

No,
sir, of that I have no doubt. [Laughs]

Have
you thought about your legacy, what you’d like to be remembered for?

Well, I would have thought it’d be nice
to be remembered as someone who tried hard.
I think that’s enough to remember anyone
by—someone who actually tries hard, even if they don’t succeed all the time.

In any walk of life, anywhere, trying
hard, whether it’s with a relationship or in your career or just to get the
damn DVD recorder to record your favorite television program. Whatever it is,
trying hard is kind of a pretty positive thing, and it’s, I suppose, what I
would prefer to be remembered as, rather than someone who necessarily was
terribly successful at any one thing.

I just like the idea that I give it my
best shot, whatever it might be.

For more info on exact dates, or to buy tickets for Jethro Tull's tour celebrating Thick as a Brick 1 and 2, head on over the the band's site.

A veteran journalist who has covered the comics medium since 1998, Bill Baker is also the author of Icons: The DC Comics and WildStorm Art of Jim Lee and seven previous books featuring his extended interviews with Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and other notable creators. You can learn more about Bill’s work…